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“The whole duty of typography ... is to communicate to the
imagination, without loss by the way, the thought or image intended to be communicated
by the author”.24 The previous quote by Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson,
a bookbinder who worked in the late nineteenth-century, brings to mind an interesting concept,
“... communicate to the imagination ...”. This suggests that there is a certain
amount that the designer/typographer should leave to the viewers imagination, bringing
ambiguity into the equation. Is the designer of new typographic forms pushing the threshold
of this ambiguity? The advent of the television age has increased our ability to recognize
letters and words at a faster rate. Because of this, Neville Brody suggests that fine
detailing in typography is no longer important but the overall shape of the letterform is.
It can also be said that the negative shape is just as important as the positive shape.
Playing with the idea of what is figure and what is ground adds a certain ambiguity to
the communication thus increasing viewer participation. |
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The typographer/designer/educator Jeffery Keedy feels that we have robbed
society of all ambiguity and therefore interest in our typographic forms. He has stated,
“Many people in life feel it's their role in life to destroy all ambiguity. I think
that ambiguity is life itself and it's what makes life interesting. We too often assume
that people are so stupid that they can't deal with ambiguity. I think people live for
ambiguity ...”25 Keedy creates ambiguity to provide the viewer a place
to participate in his message making. This is not a totally new idea when it comes to
creating graphic form but when applied solely to typography it has rarely been the case.
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